Categories
Beer history bottled beer Brew Britannia pubs

The World on your Sofa

It can sometimes feel as if drinking anywhere but the pub is a betrayal of ‘proper beer’, but it’s actually played a huge part in developing the culture Britain has today, and has broadened the palates of many.

That thought was prompted by this Tweet from Zak Avery, who runs legendary bottle-shop Beer Ritz:

In conversation recently, we said that we didn’t particularly enjoy beer festivals because they aren’t ‘how we like to drink’, which prompted the question, ‘Well, how do you like to drink?’ The honest answer is either (a) in the pub (once or twice a week) or (b) in the front room (more often).

Unless you live conveniently close to a good multi-pump real ale pub or a craft beer bar, then home is the only place to satisfy a spontaneous craving for a bit of strange. As we’ve said before, we like St Austell Tribute, but we don’t want to drink it every night, which is where a case of oddities from Beer Merchants or Beer Ritz, or even a few things from Tesco, fill the gap.

The majority of our most profound beer experience have, as it happens, occurred in pubs or beer gardens, but, for example, the first really aromatically-hoppy beer that ever made us say ‘Wow!’ we drank at home — Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, from ASDA, in, we think, around 2005.

Drinking fancy-pants beers at home is a fairly recent phenomenon which arose alongside the Campaign for Real Ale, meeting a demand among newly-assertive consumers for better beer.

Belgian beer didn’t start appearing in Britain in any great variety until the 1980s with ‘bottle shops’, run by enthusiasts for enthusiasts. One of the first, and perhaps most famous was the one on Pitfield Street. The founding of Cave Direct (Beer Merchants) is covered briefly in our book. Another such shop we read about but didn’t look into in great detail was Grog Blossom in Notting Hill, which was profiled in the Financial Times in 1989.

As for bottled British beer, here’s how Richard Morrice, a long-time industry PR man, put it when we interviewed him last summer:

You have to remember that, in the seventies, ‘premium bottle beers’ didn’t exist. Bottled beer was Mackeson’s, Bass, Forest Brown, that kind of thing, and usually came in 550ml returnable ‘London pint’ bottles, or in ‘nips’. There was a limited choice of regional brands and that was it.

In the late eighties, Shepherd Neame released a range of 500ml bottled ales, which was a risky enterprise, and there was a limited take-up by supermarkets. These ‘PBAs’ (premium bottled ales) sat in a price gap between the very cheap drink-at-home lager and draught beer in the pub, on a pence-per-litre basis, and the supermarket buyers just weren’t convinced. When Marston’s launched their range of PBAs as late as 1991, there were still no retailers really willing to take them.

[But, fairly] quickly… you started to get things like Marston’s Head Brewer’s Choice series, and seasonals, until there was quite a lot of choice.

If you want to experience the Michael Jackson vision of a world where beer comes in every shade and strength, from the beefy blackness of imperial stout to the barely-intoxicating pallor of Berliner Weisse, your own front room remains the place where you’re most likely to find it.

Categories
Beer history Brew Britannia london

The Original Hackney Hipster Brewer

Godson's Brewery.
Snaps of Godson’s Brewery yard via Patrick Fitzpatrick.

It’s London Beer City from Saturday 9 to 16 August and we thought this would be a good time to answer a question Brew Britannia unfortunately left dangling: what did happen to Godson’s brewery?

Founded in 1977, Godson’s was the first new brewing company to be established in London for decades, and we’re quite proud of having tracked down its founder, Patrick Fitzpatrick.

We’ve described him a few times now as the original Hackney hipster brewer — bearded, charming and hippyish, he was only in his twenties when he went into business in East London, having been inspired on a trip to India.

For one reason and another, we were obliged to remove a section explaining the downfall of Godson’s from the final draft of the book, but accidentally left in a teasing line suggesting that ‘everything that could go wrong did…’

Now, slightly edited (but hopefully transparently so) is a chunk of the transcript of our interview with Mr Fitzpatrick, which will hopefully satisfy those of you who were left on tenterhooks.

The first brewery was in Hackney and that was a temporary premises. We knew it was due to be redeveloped, at some point, into a car park, but we asked how long we had it for and they said, oh, five or ten years. Then Mrs Thatcher came to power and, to stimulate the economy, ordered councils to spend on capital projects. Someone in Hackney Council didn’t realise we’d been promised this premises by their property division and the development was suddenly moved forward.

Tower Hamlets heard about this and they invited us in. The Gunmaker’s Lane property was totally unsuitable – absolutely everything about it was wrong. It was an old, wooden-floored warehouse. We also had staff problems, employing people through the local employment exchange. It was a bad summer for brewing, by which I mean it was really hot, so we had quality control problems, but we had to keep up the supply to customers.

I also had a bit of a falling out with [logistics manager] Hugo Freeman and [brewer] Rob Adams… [and] they both left the industry, as far as I know.

In the autumn/winter of the same year, we moved again, to the Black Horse brewery. This was much better, but, again, everything had to be moved. While we were moving around, we couldn’t brew or sell our own beer…

Then there was the Tisbury merger, which was really a reverse takeover. We heard about them through John Wilmot, who was also working as a consultant for them. My wife wanted to move out of London and so this seemed like a good opportunity. It was in a mess, though, and we had to close it down and rebuild it, all the while having the beer brewed in London, which wasn’t ideal. Then, in 1983, they got taken over, while we were in the process of ‘due diligence’ for the merger, by a company which was investing gold salvaged from a World War II shipwreck… I pulled out, being owed something like £120k.

Then Everards, Adnams, Hall & Woodhouse and Ruddles set up their own distribution company and offered me the chance to go in with them. I think, now, wrongly, I did so. I thought, great – if they take on distribution, then I can concentrate on brewing, but I hadn’t realised what an essential combination the two were…

We also took on another brewery, Chudley, which was run by Tom Chudley in Maida Vale. I thought we were taking on a business partner who could actually brew and would look after production, but… [actually] we inherited his debt. [B&B: And then Chudley left the company.]

All this ‘corporate’ stuff began to take over from the actual brewing, and just wore me out. We eventually sold the rights to the name to Peter Gibb at Gibb’s Mews, and I left brewing.

So there you go –the lack of a decent, stable premises, and a series of partnerships that didn’t work out, were what did for Godson’s.

Categories
beer reviews Brew Britannia pubs

King Street Revisited

Shnoodlepip from the cask.

Last Christmas, we found ourselves on King Street in Bristol, and were astonished to note that it had become home to three self-styled ‘craft beer’ outlets. We subsequently used it as a symbol of ‘the rebirth of British beer’ in the prologue of Brew Britannia.

Back then, Small Bar had only just opened, and, even though there was an exciting sense of commitment to ‘the cause’, it was obviously still finding its feet, serving flat kegged beer, some of it poorly chosen in the first place, amidst paint fumes and an air of mild panic.

Last Sunday, we broke the journey back from Birmingham and braved a night in Bristol to check on its progress.

While the Famous Royal Naval Volunteer across the road was gloomy and mostly empty, Small Bar, was buzzing.

A mini-festival celebrating the Wild Beer Co. (who also get a third of a chapter in Brew Britannia…) and British sour beers more generally was underway, and the chalked-up beer list, with clearly-stated prices, looked especially enticing.

Having missed it entirely last year, and at the Birmingham Beer Bash on Saturday, we started off with Shnoodlepip (6.5%), WBC’s collaboration with Mark Tranter and Kelly Ryan, in its 2014 iteration. It was available from straight-up keg and also from an oak cask, so we got a half of each to compare. We didn’t detect much difference except that the former was (surprise!) cooler and had better condition. The barman promised definite oakiness, but we didn’t get it. Overall, there was something of the hedgerow wine about it. It’s tastefully done, and certainly tasty, but not a revelation.

Somerset Wild (5%), also from WBC, was more to our taste. When we spoke to Brett Ellis and Andrew Cooper last summer, they were still working up to using actual wild yeast as opposed to bought-in cultures. This pilsner-pale, appetisingly hazy, gooseberry-wine of a beer is evidence that whatever’s on the breeze in Somerset isn’t just good for fermenting scrumpy. The head disappeared quickly, but the beer had plenty of life, and felt traditional, like the kind of thing farm labourers in Thomas Hardy novels might have enjoyed. A contender for beer of the year, if we can find the opportunity to try it again.

While we were on a streak of finding long-coveted beers with a vague Brew Britannia connection, we were also pleased to encounter  Lovibond’s Sour Grapes (5.4%). (Jeff Rosenmeier of Lovibond’s is quoted in the book, as a passionate and eloquent critic of cask-conditioning.) We were expecting, perhaps, indigestion-inducing FEEL THE BURN sourness, so were pleased to find it a clean-but-complex, summery beer which we could happily spend a long session drinking. “Lemon cheesecake” reads the only note we took all afternoon.

Almost everything interesting was £6+ a pint, so it’s not a cheap place to drink, but staff were generous with samples, and we didn’t feel like any of the beers we bought were bad value, insofar as, scarcity aside, they were genuinely different to anything on offer at any of our local pubs.

This was a fun afternoon session in a bar which is in the process of becoming great, and where we felt very at ease. We’ll be back.

Brett Ellis, head brewer at WBC, also happened to be there, delivering a talk to a crowd of fans — was ever there a time when more lectures were given in British drinking establishments?

Categories
beer festivals Beer history Brew Britannia videos

VIDEO: 10 Objects #9 — Token

This is the 9th in our series of really short films The Strange Rebirth of British Beer in 10 Objects.

It’s about a beer festival token and the development of the modern British beer festival.

With thanks to David Shipman, one of the directors of the Birmingham Beer Bash for donating the token.

Categories
Beer history Brew Britannia videos

VIDEO: 10 Objects #8 — Seasonal

Accompanying the publication of our book, Brew Britannia we’re producing ten minute-long films featuring objects which reflect part of the story.

This eighth film concerns the diversification of British brewing in the 1990s with the arrival of ‘guest beers’ and more demanding beer geeks.